


Simplicity

by Lumelle



Series: No Queen of Tennis [1]
Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: FtM Atobe Keigo, Gender Dysphoria, M/M, Supportive Sanada Genichirou, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 08:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13186662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lumelle/pseuds/Lumelle
Summary: Sanada Genichirou was a simple man. Atobe Keigo was not. Somehow, though, Sanada managed to find the simple truth in the middle of it all.





	Simplicity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kaerstyne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaerstyne/gifts).



Sanada Genichirou was a simple man.

This was not to say that he was stupid, however much some people might have liked to think so. He was tall and strong and didn’t bother with unnecessary chatter, and for some people that meant he was nothing but dumb muscle. This was far from the truth, of course, but he rarely bothered to try and clear up the misconception. It wasn’t his place to try and gain attention, anyway, not in a world where Yukimura existed.

Sanada was not stupid, but he was a simple man at heart, one who preferred simple things. As such, he had no idea how or why he had gotten himself drawn into the sphere of influence of the living hurricane that was Atobe Keigo. He had been perfectly content when his life had revolved around the team and tennis and little else, yet somehow Atobe had wormed his way through the cracks of that well-established routine and made himself at home.

It was still about tennis, of course, all of Atobe’s various quirks and eccentricities brushed aside when they stepped onto a court. He could dismiss the rest of it as unimportant as long as Atobe was the magnificent opponent he had always been. It never even occurred to him that there could be anything else, not until the possibility was pointed out to him.

“You know,” Yukimura said rather out of the blue one day, that perfect smile on his perfect lips, “it’s fine if you want to date Atobe.”

At the time Sanada had been too stunned to even protest at such assumptions. It was ridiculous, of course, and if it had come from anyone but Yukimura he would have said so. He had no time for things such as dating, and he was certain Atobe didn’t, either. Besides, the only thing they had in common was tennis, and whatever crude jokes about balls Niou might have made on occasion, not even Sanada would mistake tennis for dating.

Sanada was a simple man, though, and when Atobe asked him for coffee, it was simple enough to say yes.

He wasn’t entirely sure how that one coffee meeting turned into the complicated mess that was his supposed relationship, but it was probably something to do with Atobe. Atobe, who was a whirlwind of drama and gleaming eyes and a kind of beauty that was nothing like Yukimura’s ethereal charm, Atobe who entered the high school circuit with as little difficulty and as much fanfare as he had the middle school one, Atobe who as a maddening enigma that defied explanation and still somehow managed to find his place in Sanada’s rather simpler sort of life.

Atobe, who called him in the middle of the night almost choking on tears and declared that Sanada was going to hate him for who he was.

Atobe was a complex creature, Sanada had known that all along, yet as he got past the barriers of the public persona he started to realize he didn’t know even a fraction of it. No amount of exposure to Atobe, the ever-confident captain of Hyoutei, could have prepared him to the untamed jungle of issues that hid within Keigo, his perhaps-probably boyfriend. Oh, the smirks and quips and confidence tripping over into arrogance were still the same, yet with Keigo he also saw vulnerability, weaknesses, open wounds he couldn’t heal no matter how much he wished. Keigo was the one who dealt with dysphoria and doubts and difficult relatives, Keigo was the one going through a ridiculous amount of paperwork just to make sure he could compete in the correct circuit, Keigo who gave Sanada a humorless smile as he stabbed himself with a needle just to get the hormones he should have had by right of birth. There was very little Sanada could do to help Keigo, so he took the simple approach and did what he could. Perhaps it wasn’t much, making agreeing sounds when Keigo ranted about this or that and suggesting a match whenever there was too much tension to be vented out with mere words, but it was the most he could offer and it seemed to satisfy Keigo for the most part.

Only once, in his first tearful call far too late for any reasonable interaction, did Keigo voice any doubts about Sanada’s feelings for him over this. Even so, for all that Keigo seemed to believe his reassurances, Sanada rather suspected those doubts never quite went away. He couldn’t truly rid Keigo of these fears, not when they were more about Keigo’s own sense of self and his bad days than any actual wavering on Sanada’s part, but he did what he could. It was all simple things, given his own simple nature, but sometimes getting called Sanada’s boyfriend was exactly what Keigo needed when he was reminded too much of the differences between what his body was and what he knew it should have been. Other times that didn’t do much to help, and those were the times when Sanada was at his most helpless, seeing the man he had come to consider his suffer over an accident of birth and feeling useless in aiding him.

No, that was not quite true. His most helpless moments were the rare times when Keigo refused a tennis match. At least if they were playing, Sanada could at least pretend he was doing something, even if it was just momentarily distracting Keigo from what was actually bothering him. When Keigo would not even step on the court, too at odds with his body and mind to focus, Sanada was left at a loss.

Sanada was a simple man. He knew that other people considered these complicated issues, saw clearly enough the conflict inside Keigo, but he preferred to see things simply. Keigo told everyone that he was a man, and clearly Keigo would know himself best. As such, Sanada was happy to face him over the net, had no hesitation in playing with his full strength, saw no problem with drawing him close and holding him until he could breathe again. He wanted to tell Keigo how none of this mattered to him, sometimes, but even with his own sometimes less than perfect knowledge of social interactions he knew it wouldn’t help, not when it very much mattered to Keigo. And Keigo in turn mattered to him, increasingly so with every passing day, and that importance was completely unaffected by whether Keigo was his usual shining self or texting Sanada with trembling hands because someone had called him a princess but he was in public and couldn’t show how it affected him. Keigo mattered, and his pain mattered as well, and for all that Sanada took well-earned pride in his own body and the strength he had honed to a fine blade he sometimes caught himself thinking he would have given it all up in a heartbeat if in exchange he could have made Keigo truly happy in his own skin.

Sanada Genichirou was a simple man. He simply happened to love a complicated man. A maddening, breathtaking, fascinating man who might have been fractured under the surface but was all the more beautiful for the light that shone through the cracks.

For all that it brought about its own complications, loving Atobe Keigo was as simple as breathing.


End file.
